Wetland

Wetland, complex ecosystem characterized by flooding or saturation of the soil, which creates low-oxygen environments that favour a specialized assemblage of plants, animals, and microbes, which exhibit adaptations designed to tolerate periods of sluggishly moving or standing water. Wetlands are usually classified according to soil and plant life as bogs, marshes, swamps, and other similar environments.

Aerial view of wetlands in Everglades National Park, southern Florida, U.S.

Jim Wark—Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images

Wetlands and the subdiscipline of wetland ecology are a relatively new area of study in the field of ecology, primarily arising out of the laws and other regulations enacted during the 1970s. The term wetland, however, was first used formally in 1953, in a report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that provided a framework for a later publication concerning waterfowl habitat in the United States. Since then, wetlands have been variously defined by ecologists and government officials. No single, formal definition exists; however, the definition provided by the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 to guide national and international wetland-conservation measures, is among the most widely referenced:

Wetlands are areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres.

Wetland in Marshall county, Indiana, U.S.

Derek Jensen

This definition is also broad enough to encompass open water used by birds—the concept that originally inspired the protection of wetlands and associated aquatic sites.

Origin of wetlands

Evidence of the first wetland plants extends back to the Ordovician Period (485.4 million to 443.8 million years ago), when the first terrestrial plants, which were dependent on wet substrates, began to colonize the land. Wetland plants and the animals that depended on them continued to evolve, and the first marshes and swamps appeared during the Devonian Period (419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago). Swamps later dominated vast regions, such as the land that would become southern North America, during the Carboniferous Period (358.9 million to 298.9 million years ago), and parts of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (252.2 million years ago to the present) were also characterized by the presence of extensive wetland habitats.

Prairie potholes are unusual in that they are fed mostly by precipitation or groundwater and are …

Wetland communities depend on access to liquid water. Throughout geologic history, water availability has varied according to prevailing local and global climate patterns, latitude, elevation, season, and distance from both water bodies and groundwater. As a result of this variability, wetland communities in different parts of the world are the product of different conditions.

Glaciation during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) prepared several types of landscapes for the development of present-day wetlands. In glaciated regions, the movement of ice sheets scoured the landscape, and the weight of the ice depressed Earth’s crust below. Both processes created low-relief areas, such as the flat, scoured landscape of Canada’s Hudson Bay lowlands. This region, which hosts extensive wetlands that are fed by groundwater and precipitation, continues to experience isostatic uplift (a rebound in the land that follows a glacier’s retreat) that brings more of Hudson Bay’s bottom to the surface. Some of this new land has become vegetated, and the wetlands have expanded. As the Pleistocene glaciers retreated across the Northern Hemisphere, melt carved wide, flat valleys that are occupied today by major rivers and their associated wetlands and floodplains (flat land area adjacent to a stream). Uneven scouring of the landscape in some regions resulted in low spots that filled with melted snow and rainwater during particularly wet years. This process created the prairie pothole region of the Midwest and south-central Canada.

In some of the coldest parts of the world, wetlands are sustained by an impermeable layer of ice that remains in the soil throughout the year. This perennially frozen ground, or permafrost, prevents both the percolation of surface water into the ground and plant contact with mineral groundwater. About 20–22 percent of Earth’s land surface is close enough to a polar region or high enough in altitude to experience permafrost. Much of northern North America and Eurasia, as well as the Mongolian and Tibetan Plateaus, are affected by permafrost, and these regions host vast expanses of bogs, fens, and peatlands. North America possesses some of the most extensive bog and fen regions on Earth. In western Siberia, larch-spruce-birch forests form part of an enormous inland delta, which is the largest contiguous area of peatlands in the world. Asian plateaus in general host some of the most unusual high-altitude wetland ecosystems.

Some wetland areas were created in other ways during periods of low sea level, when water was locked in glacial ice. Following a drop in sea level, the coastal plain of the southeastern United States was formed by the deposition of sediment that eroded from landscapes upstream. Rising sea levels that followed the retreat of the glaciers reduced streamflow velocity, and many streams backed up. These changes resulted in the formation of a variety of depressional, flat, and riverine wetlands. In addition, the warming period that directly followed the most recent glacial episode (which ended approximately 11,700 years ago) was marked by rivers flowing with melted ice water, buried chunks of ice that melted and formed kettlelakes, large lakes that formed in low areas inland, sea margins that moved inland, and coastal water tables that generally rose with the sea. Wetlands subsequently developed along lake and coastal margins, in delta areas, and across floodplains.

Wetlands in nonglaciated regions, such as the tropics, were developed during periods characterized by slightly different climates and thus may be changing under present-day conditions. The peat swamp forests of Indonesia are built on peat up to 15 metres (about 50 feet) thick. The accumulation of this material occurred during a wetter period several thousand years ago. Although new peat is still forming in places and the region remains humid, the tropical climate of the present day is dry enough to allow the degradation of peat in some areas.

Geographic distribution of wetlands

Wetlands are found all over the world in every biome, or major life zone. Some wetlands, such as tidal marshes, fit the definition of a transitional zone because they occur where open water and land meet. Others, such as prairie potholes of central North America and Carolina bays (elliptical depressions) of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, are fed mostly by precipitation or groundwater and are not associated with a distinct body of water. Still others, such as the bog-and-fen mosaic of the taiga (boreal forest), are dominant features of the regional landscape.

Major wetland areas and worldwide distribution of salt marshes and mangrove swamps.

Wetlands are most abundant in boreal and tropical regions, though a wide variety of inland and coastal wetlands are also found in temperate regions. This distribution is generally due to conditions that promote an abundance of water. For example, the peatlands of Borneo and the Peruvian Amazon occur within the tropical rainforest biome. In the treeless tundra of Alaska and Canada, saturated and flooded wetlands are underlain by permafrost. There, many parts of the landscape are made up of peatlands composed of black spruce (Picea mariana) and white spruce (P. glauca), which are sustained by rainfall or melting snow. Wetlands are also found in the hot desert biome—for example, the Mesopotamian marshlands found at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In temperate regions, wetlands typically are found near coastlines, rivers, lakes, or other locations where local water input exceeds output.

Environmental conditions

Climate

Wetland formation is influenced by climate patterns and the limitations posed by landforms. The net balance of precipitation and evaporation determines the quantity and timing of water available for the formation or maintenance of wetland conditions. Water flows downhill, and the geomorphology of the landscape determines where it gathers as well as what topography or subsurface layers prevent it from draining away. Each wetland has a water signature, or hydroperiod, which is characterized by the timing, duration, and quantity of water in the system. Furthermore, inundation has biological consequences, because it prevents atmospheric oxygen from being replenished in the soil. As a result, only organisms that can tolerate or are adapted to low-oxygen or anoxic (negligible oxygen) conditions have an advantage in wetland environments.

Soils

Wetland, or hydric, soils form when saturated or flooded conditions last long enough during the growing season to cause anaerobic (oxygen-depleted) regions to occur in the upper part of the soil, which includes the root zone. Such soils can be organic (containing organic compounds) or derived from minerals. Organic wetland soils, such as peatland soils, contain at least 12 percent organic matter and are typically acidic; they also possess a high water-holding capacity and low nutrient availability. Organic matter builds up in the soil when low oxygen conditions halt or slow decomposition. Mineral wetland soils, on the other hand, have less than 12 percent organic matter, and they often exhibit gleying, where ferric iron (Fe3+) and manganese are reduced (that is, they gain electrons) in the soil by anaerobic bacteria thriving in the depleted oxygen conditions. The resulting ferrous iron (Fe2+) becomes concentrated in a deep soil layer (soil horizon). In waterlogged soils, the topsoil and upper soil layers take on a black, gray, or blue-green colour. Pore linings (the coatings on the surface of open spaces in the soil) in wetland mineral soils are often red, because plant roots, which make many of the pores, release oxygen into the oxygen-depleted soil. The presence of this oxygen in an anaerobic environment oxidizes some of the ferrous iron remaining in the water and concentrates it along the pore linings. Plant litter and animal waste may occur at the surface of flooded mineral soils.

Partially excavated peat bed near Avon Park, Florida, U.S.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Wetland types

Various classification systems of wetlands have been developed to serve different purposes. In Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States (1979), the USFWS presented a hierarchical system based on five ecosystem types: marine, estuarine, riverine, lacustrine, and palustrine. Similarly, the Ramsar Convention based its classification system on the USFWS model, but it added a human-created, or cultural, wetland type. Other classification systems are more consistently based on structure (i.e., the physical appearance of the wetlands), function (i.e., the hydrologic regimes and the role of the wetlands within them), or management goals (i.e., how the wetlands are used by humans).

People worldwide have long applied unique terminology for the wet places in their landscapes; however, this terminology has not been standardized across all classifications. The categories presented in the following sections are based not on a formal classification system but rather on general terms in common use that cover most wetlands.

Coastal systems

Mangroves

Mangroves are found in tropical and subtropical coastal areas between 32° N and 38° S. They are sensitive to cold temperatures and are generally found in regions that do not experience hard frosts (the average air temperature of the coldest months does not fall below 20 °C [68 °F]). Some mangroves, however, may survive drops in temperature to 7 °C (about 45 °F) or lower. Mangrove populations located farthest from the Equator are found in regions warmed by equatorial currents or in somewhat fresher estuarine waters, where reduced salt stress may enable the trees to handle colder temperatures.

Silver baitfish in a mangrove channel on South Bimini island, Bahamas.

Mangroves (Rhizophora apiculata) at low tide on the coast of Thailand.

C.B. Frith/Bruce Coleman Inc.

Mangrove seeds are dispersed by water currents, and habitats that are favourable for mangrove growth are somewhat protected from wave action, where lower-energy conditions allow mangrove seedlings to establish. The largest expanses of mangroves occur in wet deltaic regions, such as the Sundarbans on the Ganges delta in India and Bangladesh, the Niger Delta complex in Nigeria and Cameroon, and the Orinoco and Gulf of Paria deltas on Venezuela’s east coast. Other coastlines hosting nearly continuous stands of mangroves include northern Brazil, the deltaic coast of southern Papua New Guinea, and the West African coast from southern Senegal to central Sierra Leone.

Salt marshes

Salt marshes are found primarily along temperate and some boreal coastlines where sediment accumulates and mangroves do not dominate; however, some also occur in Arctic and tropical regions. Salt marshes flourish wherever the accumulation of sediments is equal to or greater than the rate of land subsidence and where there is adequate protection from disruptive waves and storms. Some inland wetland systems develop saline conditions when the rate of evapotranspiration (combined water loss from evaporation from the soil and transpiration from plants) exceeds the rate of precipitation or as a result of contact with saline groundwater. In areas characterized by the presence of saline groundwater, such as eastern Nebraska, vegetation similar to that of coastal salt marshes is found.

Salt marsh in East Lyme, Connecticut, U.S.

Alex756

Salt marshes in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay.

imagebroker.net/Superstock

Tidal freshwater marshes

Tidal freshwater marshes are found in large river systems throughout the world from subarctic regions to the Equator. The largest expanses of these wetlands occur at temperate latitudes. Tidal freshwater marshes are found in segments of river systems that are close enough to the coast to experience significant tidal action but not salinity. Downstream, the mouths of these rivers experience some tidal flux, and narrowing river channels upstream constrict the volume of the incoming tide so that the overall change in water depth is greater upriver than at the coast.

This marsh type is found extensively along the eastern and Gulf coasts of North America, as well as in the large river basins on the west coast. Other large river systems with extensive tidal freshwater marshes include the St. Lawrence River between the United States and Canada, the Rhine and Thames rivers in Europe, and the Yellow River (Huang He) in Asia.

Intertidal flats

Intertidal flats are relatively flat unvegetated areas between tidal marshes and deeper water. They are found in somewhat protected areas with limited wave action that are nevertheless disturbed by wind, waves, and currents. Their sediments are too unstable and the physical energy and the duration of flooding is too great for communities of large plants to become established. Intertidal flats are found throughout the world, such as in the St. Lawrence River lowlands, in areas adjacent to the seagrass beds of coastal Mexico, and in Hudson Bay, Canada.

Inland systems

Freshwater marshes

The wetlands in this diverse group are unified primarily by the fact that they are all nontidal, nonforested freshwater systems dominated by grasses, sedges, and other freshwater hydrophytes (aquatic plants). Freshwater marshes do not build peat. They differ in their geologic origins and their driving hydrologic forces, and they vary in size from small pothole marshes less than a hectare in size to the immense expanses of sawgrass, such as those that are found in the FloridaEverglades.

A freshwater marsh, dominated by saw grass and dotted by palms and cypresses, in the Everglades, …

Jeff Greenberg/Peter Arnold, Inc.

Freshwater marshes occur worldwide in low areas of the landscape where water collects or where a relatively impermeable soil or geologic layer causes water to pond. This group of wetlands includes the prairie potholes, vernal pools, and playas of North America, as well as the vegetated fringes of small lakes, the coastal lagoons behind the beaches of barrier islands, and the delta marshes of tributary rivers of enormous lakes (e.g., the Great Lakes of North America). The group also includes marsh systems that deliver strong seasonal pulses of fresh water to more saline areas, a dynamic illustrated by the Everglades of south Florida, where during the wet season a sheet of fresh water flows from Lake Okeechobee to the ocean.

Peatlands

Peatlands (which are sometimes called moors in Europe; they may also be referred to as mires when they are actively forming peat) develop in areas where conditions cause plant material to decompose so slowly that there is a net accumulation of organic matter (peat) each growing season. Two types of peatlands, bogs and fens, have been studied extensively in high latitudes. Bogs develop in depressions that are low in nutrients and fed primarily by rainfall, whereas fens develop on slopes, in depressions, or on flats as a result of sustained flows of mineral-rich groundwater in the root zone. Over time, bog or fen patches may merge to form a blanket over a broad area.

Peat bog near Enschede, Overijssel province, Netherlands.

Tubanter

Bogs and fens are found extensively in the cool and moist boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, where evaporation is low and moisture accumulates from ample precipitation and high humidity from maritime influences. The landscapes of Canada that were once overlain by glaciers host the largest peatlands (about 1.1 million square km [425,000 square miles]) in the world. Scandinavia, eastern Europe, western Siberia, and Alaska harbour the balance of peatlands in the cold temperate region. In the United States, bogs and fens are found primarily in clusters around the Great Lakes and in Maine; these peatlands usually develop in basins that were scoured out by glaciers during the Pleistocene Epoch.

Lower-latitude peatlands also exist. Pocosins (or evergreen shrub bogs) are well-documented peatlands of the southeastern United States, which has a humid subtropical climate. Within that region, pocosins occur mainly on the flat plateaus of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain, especially in North Carolina, where waterlogged, acidic, and nutrient-poor soils are made up of a mixture of sand and peat. Pocosins may be dominated by shrubs of the heath family (Ericaceae) and pines or conifers and hardwoods.

Tropical peatlands are found in the lowlands of East Asia and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Africa. The largest known expanses of these peatlands occur in Indonesia, where they cover 10–12 percent of the country. Some of these peatlands are tropical bogs, which occur in Southeast Asia and tropical parts of Africa and South America, but they are not as well studied as those that occur in higher latitudes.

Less well known are tropical peat swamps, which form in floodplains and tropical domed bogs (vegetation-covered mounds of peat). Tropical bog trees, such as Calophyllum and Shorea, often grow on hummocks situated above the water table, because their seeds often require drier, more-aerated conditions in order to germinate and become established. Hummocks are sometimes made up of trunks of old dead trees. Many domed bog trees are equipped with stilt roots, which grow above the water surface and act as flying buttresses to support the tree, or with pneumatophores (upward-growing structures connected to the plant’s roots), which project into the air and transport atmospheric oxygen to roots, some of which extend up to 2 metres (6.6 feet) deep in the anoxic zone.

The tropical domed peatlands of Borneo host an astonishing diversity of woody plants. Calophyllum, Combretocarpus, and Cratoxylum often appear together in some wetter evergreen forests. In contrast, Dactylocladus, Gonystylus, and Shorea are found together in peat swamps. Narrow-leafed palmlike pandans (Pandanus and Freycinetia) cover the ground in “low-pole” (or Padang) forests where light penetrates canopy gaps. These lowland forests of Borneo provide habitat for the endangered orangutans of genus Pongo.

Tropical peat swamp forests develop where conditions create permanently saturated acidic substrates. Their formation is a complex process, and peat accumulation in a given location can vary with changes in climate, along with river configuration and flow. Some tropical peatlands formed during wetter periods and may now be experiencing peat degradation due to the relatively drier climate of the present day.

Although less widespread in the Southern Hemisphere, peatlands are also found in the subalpine zones of the Patagonian Andes in South America, as well as in the lowlands of New Zealand. Patagonia’s peatlands are characterized by species of sphagnum moss (Sphagnum), sedge (Carex), rush (Juncus), and grasses (Agrostis). New Zealand’s peatlands occur in raised blanket bogs (or flat elevated bogs) dominated by restiads (wire rushes), such as Sporadanthus and Empodisma.

Freshwater forested swamps

Freshwater forested swamps are dominated by trees or other woody vegetation. These wetland systems occur throughout the world. In the tropics, vast swamps are found along the great rivers, by which they are often inundated for many months. The entire Atlantic coast of the temperate United States is particularly rich with swamps.

A man canoes among cypress trees in the Okefenokee Swamp, in southeastern Georgia.

Freshwater forested swamps characterized by red maple (Acer rubrum) are found in the formerly glaciated northeastern United States. Coastal swamps, which are found from the coast of Maine to the Gulf Coast, are dominated by Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides), however. Atlantic white cedar swamps, which occupy sites that are drier than deepwater swamps, are flooded in winter and for an extended period during spring. Red maple swamps, in contrast, experience less flooding.

Deepwater swamps characterized by cypress (Cupressus) and tupelo (Nyassa) trees are found from Delaware to Texas and along the Mississippi River, extending north to Illinois. However, they occur primarily along the wide meandering rivers of the Atlantic Coast Plain. On this plain, the flat topography, which slows the emptying of rivers into the ocean, combined with rising ocean levels that followed the retreat of the glaciers to create favourably wet conditions. In general, deepwater cypress-tupelo swamps are inundated 90–100 percent of the year, with low- to moderate-strength currents.

Backswamps—basins occurring behind the natural levies of a floodplain that are composed of fine flood-deposited sediments—form in abandoned channels (oxbows) or elongated sloughs. Both of these landforms are permanently inundated with water but receive a pulse of nutrient-rich river water and sediments only during the flood season.

Riparian wetlands

Riparian wetlands are also called riverine wetlands or floodplain wetlands, and they constitute a subset of the riparian system. Riparian systems are linear and open. Not only do they interact with upstream and downstream channels; they also interact laterally with aquatic and terrestrial systems on either side. Riparian wetlands occur along rivers and streams that periodically overflow their channel confines, causing flooding to which the wetland vegetation is adapted. They are also found where a meandering stream channel creates new sites for plant life to take root and grow.

Riparian wetlands are found the world over and take different forms in different regions in response to climatic and topographic factors. Riparian ecosystems can exist as broad and nearly flat alluvial valleys, such as those that occur in the Amazon Basin of South America, in Bangladesh, and in the floodplains of large rivers such as the Mississippi in the United States. In arid regions, however, riparian ecosystems can be narrow strips of vegetation along the bank of a stream that is prone to flash flooding and unstable. In mountainous regions, such as the Pacific Northwest, riparian systems may be narrow along steep headwater streams, but they may widen to expansive floodplains in the lowland reaches.

In arid regions, riparian systems can exist within the valley floors and floodplains of perennial streams and alongside or within ephemeral streams. In most nonarid regions, riparian zones usually develop first along the region of the stream where water flow is constant (where sufficient groundwater enters the channel to sustain flow through dry periods). Many alluvial forests, which form within alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits of unconsolidated sedimentary material at the mouth of a mountain canyon), may be inundated for part of the year.

Wetlands are areas of land characterized by poor drainage. As a consequence, sluggishly moving or standing water is present most or all of the time, leaving the soil saturated. Wetlands are found on the boundary between a body of water and the land. They are usually classified as swamp, marsh, or bog, depending on what type of soil and plants are present.

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